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Milliner, Banks, and Rhodes: A Metrics Breakdown

Regardless of whether Sean Smith re-signs, the Dolphins need a cornerback. The question is, do we want that CB in the first round? Personally, I'm on board for that, but to each their own. This is my first time charting CBs, so I'm more unsure about what's relevant statistically and what's not. I did my best to parse out the important things and there's a lot more charts on the site to check out if you want more.

As a note, unlike WRs where I note only when they are targeted, Iíve charted a variety of factors on each and every snap when it comes to CBs. Thus, I used a 4 game sample, which is normally smaller than Iíd like. However, Iím still happy with the sample and think it gets a good representation of these corners. Enjoy!

Where Were They Targeted?

These are the locations in which the cornerbacks were targeted. That is, it includes all outcomes such as completions, pass interference, deflections, etc.

All of the CBs were challenged in the 1-5 yard zone a plurality of the time. Nearly 50% of Banksí targets came within a short distance of the LOS. Similarly Millinerís 33% and Rhodes 43% are very high. This high percentage is likely due to shorter routes, including swing passes out of the backfield into their zones.

Less of Millinerís targets came in the shorter zones, instead 50% of his targets came in the intermediate zones of 6-20 yards.

Xavier Rhodes was challenged deep most often with 19% of his total targets coming back 20 yards. This could either be indicative of the coverage FSU was playing or that quarterbacks often felt that Rhodes was vulnerable deep.

What Happened After They Were Targeted?

All of these are a function of total passes, not just targets. Thus 100 minus the percentage of No Throw would equal how often they were targeted. Iíve taken out interceptions, thus it wonít add to 100%,

In total Milliner and Banks were targeted roughly 21% of the time, while Rhodes was only targeted on 14.5% of all passes. This is clearly a significant drastic difference. This doesnít necessarily mean Rhodes is the better corner. It could mean Florida Stateís other CBs were bad enough to be targeted more. Still itís worth checking out due to the drastic nature of the difference.

Milliner deflected more balls than the others with 3.48% of all passes deflected (which works out to roughly 16% of all targets). We should note that Banks had more interceptions which isnít reflected in this chart.

Rhodes had a few pass interference penalties in my sample, which would actually count as worse than completions due to the distance given up on each PI call.

Where Did They Line Up?

Even though we know where they were targeted, what technique were they playing? While I didnít try to decipher the playbooks to figure out the coverages, I at least noted where they were aligned pre-snap. As a note, the CBs had to get their hands on the WRs to count as press coverage. The yardage refers to how far they were from the line of scrimmage.

Rhodes by far was the most ďversatileĒ cornerback. He played press coverage nearly 21%of the time compared to only 13% for Milliner and 8% for Banks. The distribution over each zone is nearly equal for Rhodes.

The majority of Millinerís snaps were taken close to the line of scrimmage. Nearly 56% of his snaps were a 1-5 yard zone pre-snap look, while he played press- bail 22.6% of the time.

Some have spoken of Banksí physicality, while this doesnít prove anything, around 85% of his snaps were started off the line of scrimmage between 1 and 10 yards. He almost never played press-bail at only 6% of the time.

Average Distance of CompletionsThis is simply the average distance in yards of a completion against each CB. Note that these are before yards after the catch.

The average completions against both Milliner and Banks are around the 8 yard range with Millinerís being slightly higher.

Rhodesí average distance is much lower at 5.7 yards. Whether thatís due to his play in the ACC or physicality, Rhodes did not give up deep passes on average.

I have a litany of other charts and data that Iím going to post below. Iím not even going to try to analyze them because you could be here for weeks reading them. Among them we have completions by down, first downs, targets by alignment, etc. You can find those here:

Re: Milliner, Banks, and Rhodes: A Metrics Breakdown

Excellent breakdown! I think that all three of these CB will be outstanding on Sunday buy I am biased toward Rhodes because I am an FSU alum and have watched nearly every play of his career. I am very interested in hearing the gurus on this site break down your data.

I do know that Rhodes is fairly hard to beat long and he is a beast on third down or when the game is on the line. They started a freshman opposite him must of the year albeit a very talented one and neither gave up much at all. Drafting a lot of defensive players from FSU and Alabama would be very wise this year as they were two very special defenses.

Love the breakdown. One small correction. When you say "In total Milliner and Banks were targeted roughly 31% of the time, while Rhodes was only targeted on 14.5% of all passes." I think you mean that Banks and Milliner were targeted 21% of the time. Seems like a simply typo.

Very interesting. Now if I'm a scout, I want to see how these guys do against the best wide receivers in the nation. I think both Banks and Rhodes will rise before April. I've seen mocks with both going low 1st or early 2nd. I can't imagine it wil look like that on draft day.

Very interesting. Now if I'm a scout, I want to see how these guys do against the best wide receivers in the nation. I think both Banks and Rhodes will rise before April. I've seen mocks with both going low 1st or early 2nd. I can't imagine it wil look like that on draft day.

I posted somewhere in FH how Banks and Milliner did against Hunter and Patterson. Here are the results of DeAndre Hopkins versus Rhodes:

19 total times lined up against each other. 2 Completions for Hopkins for 4 yards, 1 pass breakup for Rhodes on a target of 4 yards.

Rhodes didn't fare as well against Quintin Payton of NC State. Payton was targeted 5 times for 4 completions and 1 pass breakup. Don't really have any more data on big wide receivers like Payton, Marcus Davis from VT had one catch on him

Love the breakdown. One small correction. When you say "In total Milliner and Banks were targeted roughly 31% of the time, while Rhodes was only targeted on 14.5% of all passes." I think you mean that Banks and Milliner were targeted 21% of the time. Seems like a simply typo.

Is this going to be a two-parter - like your WR breakdown? For me, Milliner and Rhodes are options at 12. My top two CB's. If Miami doesn't pull the trigger on one of them at 12 (assuming either is available), I would have them wait until the 2nd. I don't know how high Alford will ultimately go, but he's the next guy I'd target - followed by Banks, Trufant, and Poyer (in that order).

Is this going to be a two-parter - like your WR breakdown? For me, Milliner and Rhodes are options at 12. My top two CB's. If Miami doesn't pull the trigger on one of them at 12 (assuming either is available), I would have them wait until the 2nd. I don't know how high Alford will ultimately goal, but he's the next guy I'd target - followed by Banks, Trufant, and Poyer (in that order).

Thanks. Yeah forgot to mention that, there will be a 2nd tier with Poyer, Trufant and Slay. I wanted to add Poyer to this group but just ran out of time. There are so many interesting CB prospects that by draft time I may have a third tier with Logan Ryan and a few others (Amerson? Hawthorne? Not sure yet)

Thanks. Yeah forgot to mention that, there will be a 2nd tier with Poyer, Trufant and Slay. I wanted to add Poyer to this group but just ran out of time. There are so many interesting CB prospects that by draft time I may have a third tier with Logan Ryan and a few others (Amerson? Hawthorne? Not sure yet)

Excellent breakdown! I think that all three of these CB will be outstanding on Sunday buy I am biased toward Rhodes because I am an FSU alum and have watched nearly every play of his career. I am very interested in hearing the gurus on this site break down your data.

I do know that Rhodes is fairly hard to beat long and he is a beast on third down or when the game is on the line. They started a freshman opposite him must of the year albeit a very talented one and neither gave up much at all. Drafting a lot of defensive players from FSU and Alabama would be very wise this year as they were two very special defenses.

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Missed this post the first time around. I'm definitely intrigued. I had gone into this having looked a lot at Banks and Milliner but at almost nothing on Rhodes. Now I'm very curious about his combine performance and to look at him in a non-charting manner. Someone had told me that he wasn't particularly great in run support, despite his size, so I'd like to go back and look at that. Not sure if that's true. or not.

EDIT: In about three of the games I watched, Rhodes went out with a stinger for a drive and then suddenly came back fine. Is this normal for him? Does he have a history of injuries. The games I'm thinking of were Miami, Clemson and VT if I remember correctly.